Thursday, October 18, 2012

I don't think I've mentioned on the blog that I just took a new position within Giant Ass Bank. I'll be building out a program and doing some cool and important stuff with it. How's that for intentionally vague? You don't care about the details, I promise.

I'm excited about the opportunity and am looking forward to the challenge. There's nothing I like better than building something from the ground up into a fully grown, robust machine. I'm good at it, and as cliche/corporate cheeseball as it sounds, I'm up for the challenge.

We had a huge team meeting here in Des Moines this week. Over 240 people from across the country were in town to do a meet and greet. After the meetings on Tuesday, GAB reserved a restaurant downtown for the group. My boss isn't located here in the Des Moines area, so after the meetings, I drove him and another coworker downtown.

I don't know if I've mentioned that TH and I recently got a new van. (It's a Honda Odyssey. It's awesome.) For five years now, I have driven a little car. I'm not used to driving a big old van. And unfortunately, the only place to park nearby was a spot in which I would have to parallel park.

(STOP laughing, TH. I can hear you from here.)

So, I pulled up to the car in front of the space, put the van in reverse, and blah blah. I would've been fine, except that I turned too sharply and ended up smushing the rear tire against the curb in such a way that it became impossible to move. I couldn't just overcorrect and go up on the curb for a moment (that would've been embarrassing, but not too horrible) and I couldn't even pull back out and try again. Instead, I had to put the van in drive and inch forward, put it in reverse and inch back, etc., etc., over and over again at least ten times. I'm not even kidding.

At one point, my boss asked, "Do you want me to get out and park for you?"

Oh yes he did.

Thud.

Despite my stern announcement that 'what happens in the van stays in the van', he and my coworker were were shaking their heads and laughing at me. It was humiliating. But hey - I can laugh at myself, so I suppose that's good.

My boss is traveling back home today and I had to text him to ask him a work question. He replied back with this youtube link:

Smartass.

Sigh.

Oh well, I suppose it doesn't hurt to show him that I have one TEENSY imperfection. And I'm going to look on the bright side of things. Now I have the perfect answer to that dreaded interview question: "What is your greatest weakness?"

I had Mr. Bond. The only thing I remember him teaching us is this: when you're getting onto the interstate, slam on the accelerator like you're squashing a bug.

I'm not sure if that was good advice or not, but it was memorable.

And, FOR THE RECORD, I am not horrible at parallel parking. I'm just not used to the minivan yet!!! (good thing my husband doesn't have an account to log in and comment. He'd likely contradict that statement.)

Oh my gosh, that is hilarious! You are such a good sport! My sister can't parallel park either-- and I love the quote from her driver's ed teacher. "Well Miss ......., I don't want to set you up for failure by making you perform the parallel parking test." So she just learned with "invisible cars". Lol!

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Reading List

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